Thursday, April 14, 2016

Sporting Kansas City 1-2 Colorado Rapids
Sporting Kansas City was celebrating they're 20th anniversary of their first match with some throwback uniforms with the rainbow numbers reminiscent of the original Kansas City Wizards. They weren't doing these Wizards any justice in the first half, though. After a lifeless attack, they allowed Marco Pappa to create a turnover in their defensive half in the 41st minute. Pappa then played a great pass top Luis Solignac who banged home his second goal of the season.

SKC controlled about three quarters of the possession in the second half, but it still didn't end well. After posts and errant shots foiled them time and time again, they thought they had they're equalizer in the 77th minute when Dom Dwyer avoided to make it 1-1. Within minutes of that, however, Colorado took advantage of a midfield turnover that resulted in a hard shot off the crossbar falling right to Shkelzen Gashi for an easy Colorado winner. Stout Rapids defense and more posts and bad misses in the final ten minutes kept SKC off the board and handed them their second consecutive home loss.

Portland Timbers 1-3 FC Dallas
This match was nothing short of a total disaster for the Timbers. They fell behind in the fourth minute when poor midfield and backline play allowed Michael Barrios to blast one home. It became 2-0 to FC Dallas in the 26th when former Timber Maxi Urruti created a turnover, giving Fabian Castillo ave easy goal. Three minutes later Dallas got their third from Tesho Akindele with Castillo turning provider.

Even though Dallas was comfortable sitting back and letting Portland possess the ball in the second half, they were unlucky not to have scored at least twice more. A couple posts and missed shots failed them early on. As the half wore on, Portland got a couple chances to score and they even pulled one back. Darren Mattocks, seconds after being brought on as a sub, scored his first goal since coming to Portland last month. There were a couple other half chances and one shot cleared off the line that could have allowed the Timbers to cut the deficit to only one, but none actually went in. Portland is now winless since the opening weekend of the season and is really struggling to find anything with all their injury and depth issues.

San Jose Earthquakes 2-0 New York Red Bulls

The New York Red Bulls continue to have a goal scoring problem as their trip to the Bay Area produced zero goals for the fifth time out of six matches this season. San Jose picked up a goal from Fatai Alashe in the 40th minute and Chris Wondolowski in the 55th to keep their strong run of form going. Alashe's goal was a bumbling shot from outside the penalty area that looked to have taken multiple deflections on its way in. Wondo's was a weakly defended header off a pretty simple cross into the six yard box.

As for the Red Bulls and their inability to put goals away, the problem is purely finishing. They had 14 shots with five on target in this one, but none were enough to fool David Bingham. Granted, tonight they had Bradley Wright-Philips, Sacha Kljestan, and Mike Grella on the bench due to the quick turn around, but it isn't like they have been scoring with them out there anyway. A shake up turns out to have had little to no effect on how well they are playing up front.